MMANews.com reports that Roy Nelson will face Xtreme Couture’s Jay White at Affliction: DoR (the abbreviations have already begun, deal with it) in October. Nelson was the IFL’s only official heavyweight champ, and White is…2-5. Wonder which of these guys is being groomed for a big future in the stacked Affliction heavyweight division?

Meanwhile, Sherdog is passing along info that a rematch with Antonio Rogerio Nogueira has been offered to IFL light heavyweight champ Vladimir Matyushenko. Vladdy beat Little Nog via decision in 2002, and he never faced much of a test during his unbeaten run in the IFL. Matyushenko would make an excellent addition to the growing 205-pound ranks in Affliction, which should soon include Tito Ortiz, who Matyushenko lost a decision to in 2001.

In other news…

- Fightlinker has enlisted the services of Matthew Polly — author of this hilarious and highly recommended book — to review several of the MMA “memoirs” that have hit the shelves in recent months. Polly does to their sense of narrative and craft (and their ghostwriters’ sense of exactly how much work they’d have to do to get paid) what these same fighters would likely do to the face of anyone who uses words like narrative and craft. Fun times. Check out his review of “Iceman: My Fighting Life” and you’ll see what we mean.

- Ever wondered how rich Dana White really is? Well, rich. But Wall Street Fighter tries to nail down a solid figure. It’s actually harder than it sounds, although their photoshop of the UFC Prez is just adorable.

Cagepotato Comments

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In the article they stated "UFC made $190 million in 2006. You can double that in 2007. So let's say the UFC is currently valued at 1 billion (probably light)"

WOW I love that math... $190 times 2 is $1 billion, but PROBABLY LIGHT! I'd like to hire you to do the media consulting for my firm. LOL....

ClownBaby- August 4, 2008 at 2:24 pm

Hob i doubt that the they're even thinking about selling, and if they did sell they most certainly would be able to name the price. but did you mean 135 billion or million cuz i think u said it both ways

hob- August 4, 2008 at 11:36 am

I have to agree with JB about Pride. The estimate of the UFC's value seems pretty bloated. It ignores that fact that the UFC's expansion has been mostly funded with borrowed money (it has around $350 million of debt). Since Zuffa's credit rating is below investment grade, all of this debt is pretty expensive. The low credit rating is probably due to the Company's existing debt load, the fact that it's earnings history is really short (it's only recently started turning a profit) and the fact that most of its assets are hard to foreclose on. A business is like a house. You might own the house and the house might be worth $500K. But if you have a $480K mortgage on the house, you're only worth $20K, not $500K.

You also have to keep in mind that there are pretty low barriers to entry here. If I'm Bill Gates and put up $150 million of my own money and borrow another $100 million, it would probably be enough for me to sign every major UFC fighter over to my organization within two years (or whenever their respective UFC contracts run out) and put on enough events to establish an incredibly strong competing organization (the affliction business model). Nobody is going to pay $1.35 billion dollars to buy the UFC when they can start the same thing from scratch with $150 million.

That said, if Zuffa can continue to grow earnings, someone will pay a decent amount of money to buy it and Dana White will get a nice payout. I just doubt it'll be $135 million.

JB, "you're" dumb- August 4, 2008 at 3:46 am

Hey man, I see what you're saying, Pride's worth might be a little bloated. But if you're going to insult someone's intelligence, please don't sound stupid yourself. Your words should be chosen properly, otherwise, you're going to look like an idiot.

"Your" and "you're" have different uses, I hope you are able to tell the difference now, Jackass.

JB- August 4, 2008 at 3:17 am

the article regarding dana white's worth is retarded at best, i will post my comment from that site here as well.

pride was purchased for 70 million and now somehow that defunct company which has nothing but a video libary has balloned in value, according to you, to 350 million. your an idiot and this article is ridiculous. the washington redskins and dallas cowboys are worth a little over a billion dollars and they both include huge nearly 100,000 person stadiums, training facilities and merchandise, but somehow UFC is equal to that when they barely fill 15,000 person arenas. now ask yourself what do you see more of redskins and cowboy jerseys or ufc apparel. please kill yourself and never write an article about something you clearly know nothing about.